


in1t1aliz3-c0nn3cti0n.exe

by Hexiva, reisadork



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Hugs, Identity Issues, Loneliness, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25065007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexiva/pseuds/Hexiva, https://archiveofourown.org/users/reisadork/pseuds/reisadork
Summary: Since the finale, Elliot has been alone in his head. Desperate for answers, he goes to Coney Island to force Mastermind to explain himself.
Relationships: Elliot Alderson & Mastermind
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	in1t1aliz3-c0nn3cti0n.exe

It’s been eighteen days since the end of the world, and Elliot is alone in his head. He clutches the pole and watches the city flash by, his eyes darting, examining each face around him on the subway train. He fights not to imagine he’s being followed. 

He feels like he should have adjusted by now, but he’s still struggling. Sometimes in the mornings, he catches himself almost getting on the train to go to AllSafe - or rolls over in bed at night and expects Angela to be there - or picks up the phone to call his dad. Reaching for his familiar, ever-present loop, only to find that it’s gone forever.

It’s not just the people he’s lost, the friends and family who vanished while he was sleeping. It’s the way the world feels, everything too much, too loud, too hot, too cold. He’s starting to remember now. That this is how it was before, his whole life, before the Mastermind showed up. Before his shadow self sedated and trapped him in that false world.

And the fucked up thing is, as much as he hates the Mastermind for what he did, he still misses that fake world. In that world, he felt like he belonged. Like he was whole and healthy and ready to be part of the world. Now that he’s out, he feels like an unconnected fragment, like the severed arm of a starfish. Something cut off and unfit to live on its own. 

In the past, when he faded out, when he went grey and disconnected and vague, someone else would take over. But since he woke up, they’ve all been quiet in his head, and when he fades out, he comes back to find himself right where he was. 

Stepping off the D train onto Coney island, he swallows, and wipes a hand over his eyes. He’s fighting not to cry. He can’t fall apart now. He needs  _ answers.  _ He steels himself, and keeps walking.

When the arcade comes into view, his heart nearly stops. It’s just the way he imagined, just the way he drew it in his little pet project. Did the Mastermind put it in his head? Or did he imagine it like this first, and then the Mastermind made this place to fit Elliot’s daydreams?

It’s dangerous to be here. Elliot knows that. The shit the Mastermind did when he was Elliot, it’s all over the news. The FBI have been looking for him, and they know about this place, the F Society arcade. It’s a crime scene, for fuck’s sake. But Elliot has tried everything else. Shouting, crying, begging, fading out and waiting for the Mastermind to take his place. His shadow self won’t come out. None of them will. 

But this is the Mastermind’s home territory, the place where he created his plan and put it into motion. If Elliot can’t find the Mastermind here, where else? 

Elliot scopes out the place, trying to figure out if it’s being watched. There’s crime scene tape surrounding the building, and a padlock on the door, but he can’t see anyone around, or any sign of cameras. He kneels down making quick work of the padlock, and steps inside shutting the door behind him. 

Inside, it’s not the way he imagined it at all. Or not the way he remembers it. The room is empty and dusty, all the computers removed, arcade machines removed or covered in a blanket of plastic. Elliot breathes in the dusty air, and looks around him. He can’t shake the feeling that he’s visiting a grave somehow, and the thought makes him nervous. What if the Mastermind is really gone? What if this is it - himself, Elliot, in charge forever? How the hell is he supposed to get any kind of fucking closure about the past year if the Mastermind is dead?

“Well?” He snaps out into the silent dead air of the arcade. “Where are you? Come out and answer me!”

With a combination of being called and the right amount of reason the Mastermind finds himself unwillingly triggered into this position. Forcefully driven back to this place he abandoned. He left all of this life behind, and it should have stayed that way. Why was he here? 

He’s watching Elliot from behind, quiet, hoping that he doesn’t turn around to see him back by the old machines. Just as covered up as he felt he should be. He can’t help but feel angry at being here, he wants to go back. Elliot shouldn’t be here either. 

“We can’t be here,” he elects to say. 

Of the important things, Elliot comes first, not himself. They needed to get out of here and then Mastermind would be gone too. Out of this place filled with the memories of F Society, of Trenton, Mobley, Romero, and everyone else. This place is death and pain, but it's where it all began. No wonder it's what brought him out, he’s bound to its very existence. If they left there would be no reason for him to stay. 

Elliot meets the Mastermind’s gaze, a mirror of his own. His heart is pounding. He wonders if the Mastermind can feel it. “If I walk out,” he says. “Will you stay? Or are you going to vanish again?”

The Mastermind looks away. It’s uncomfortable to look him in the face, let alone the eyes. He’s undeserving of them and needs to turn aside. Staring at Elliot is like staring at his mistakes. He feels his blood boiling, but maybe it's this anxiousness between them. 

Mastermind considers the question, but can’t bring himself to answer it. Something tells him there’s no use lying to Elliot by saying no, he isn’t planning to stick around. “It’s not safe for us here,” he says back. 

“I’m not leaving here without you,” Elliot says, refusing to look away. Mastermind  _ owes  _ him, owes him a year of his life, owes him Angela back, owes him his last moments with his mother back. He’s not going to let him slink away. 

Mastermind exhales a sigh of frustration then walks out of the shadows, into the light where Elliot stands. “You’re not going to accomplish anything by sticking around this place,” he says as he gets up closer, sternness in his every word, face twisted in a mirror of anger to the other’s. He stops up near him and pushes past his uneasiness to meet Elliot dead in the eyes with it.

He can’t hold the eye contact for long though, and he shakes his head. Looking away again, he pulls down his hood. “Chances are we’ve already tripped some alarm and they’re on the way now.” 

Elliot holds his ground, fear fighting anger in his chest and losing. “If they come, we’re both fucked. So work with me for once. Otherwise, I’m going to stand here and let it happen. I’d ask if you want to get us arrested . . . but I guess you already did that, right?”

Shame builds in Mastermind’s throat. Of course, this is what Elliot wants. He’s like him, stubborn, fueled by his desire to get what he wants. But working together - he knows what that means. Elliot wants answers but he isn’t going to get them. It makes him angry, and he can’t help it. Rage flings himself forward, closing their distance. His hands close around Elliot’s hoodie, and he’s shaking him.

“Then what? You don’t want to know me!” He yells, wide-eyed and in his face, still holding on tight. 

Elliot  _ jerks  _ back, terror winning out for a moment, and it’s as if he’s on the floor of his apartment again, the Mastermind staring down at him with those cold eyes, his hands around his neck.  _ No no no no no -  _ he shoves Mastermind back, as hard as he can.  _ This is my life,  _ he thinks, as loudly as he can.  _ This is my life, you can’t take it, you can’t take over again.  _ He steps back and forces air into his lungs, staring at Mastermind. 

“You’re right,” he says, coldly. “I don’t. But you owe me, and you’re going to pay up. You stole a year of my life. You  _ owe  _ me answers.”

Debt, paying what is due, what is owed. Mastermind struggles to see how he owes Elliot anything. Didn’t he hand it all back, didn’t he pay him in everything he could have wanted? Those debts were erased, right? At least that’s what he tells himself. 

Deep down, he knows that it isn’t what he accomplished that upsets either of them. It’s what he didn’t. It weighs on Mastermind’s entire being, and he doesn’t want to burden Elliot with it. The things he couldn’t control - there’s no explaining it. There’s no explaining any of it. 

So Mastermind doesn’t speak. He turns back around and walks to the door, back past the old machines and over the dust-covered floor. From there, hand gripping the knob, he looks back at Elliot.  _ Follow me,  _ he thinks and it’s reflected in his stare. He doesn’t let it show on his face, and the darkness helps to hide it, but there’s pain behind his eyes, the pain he doesn’t want to dig into. 

Then he’s out of there, out of the wreckage which causes him to feel suffocated by the past - suffocated by everything he couldn’t control. He won, but he lost as well, lost everything. Elliot, he thinks, needs to know what that’s really like before asking him anything. This last year, it isn’t something you just ask to have. He would need to try harder than this, and he certainly wouldn’t find his dues in the ruins of caged reminders of the past. 

This whole place is where it all started, so the past is sadly inescapable in any close proximity. Coney Island, where Fsociety cancelled the world's debts. Where they hatched the plan to take down EvilCorp for its corrupt greed. It was a rather ballsy idea that went south, way south, but in the end, they paid everyone back what they were rightfully owed, took down corruption, the top 1% of the 1%. It’s just as hard to take that in as it is the losses. So much has changed so quickly, and he’s eager to leave it behind. Elliot was supposed to be leading now. 

Elliot follows, feeling distant, faded out. He wonders if Mastermind has seized control again, if he’s the one following behind while Mastermind puppets his body. He can’t tell. His head is swimming, but it’s easy to follow Mastermind. That is, after all, what Elliot created him for.

He finds himself looking up at the ferris wheel, looming over him and cycling in hypnotic circles. For a moment, he gets lost in following its motions, until it stops, and the attendant is looking at him.

He buys one ticket, and gets on. 

Mastermind is there when he gets in, looking out of the side and struggling to decide how this should go. He has his hands balled up in fists inside his hoodie, and he squeezes them tighter as Elliot sinks down into the seat across from him. There isn’t a good explanation for taking things here specifically, other than that it’s where Mr. Robot had taken him. Giving him his first task of setting everything in motion, to domino its way back here again. Back to having debts and tasks to get rid of them. Mastermind wants to resist owing such things, he doesn’t believe much in debts, but he has them. He knows them. 

“So, I’m listening,” he says, as the ferris wheel starts to take them up. The least he can do is listen, and it isn’t like he has much choice. It was either staying and getting caught, or this. Whatever this was meant to be, it makes Mastermind fearful. 

_ I don’t want you to listen. I want you to  _ **_talk,_ ** Elliot thinks. He doesn’t know quite where to start. Mastermind should be the one taking the lead. That’s what he’s  _ for.  _ This is all wrong. 

Elliot runs a hand through his hair, his eyes sliding away from Mastermind’s. Where does he start? As always, his mind is full of words, and he can’t seem to figure out how to put them out into the world. Does he ask about 5/9 - the crazy scheme that Mastermind hatched in his name? About the ECorp bombings, the blood on Mastermind’s hands? About the prison sentence, the mark on his record that Elliot will never be able to erase? About those last, stolen moments with Angela that Elliot will never get back? Mastermind has fucked him over in a hundred different ways, and now that he has the man - delusion - alter - whatever Mastermind is - in front of him, Elliot can’t figure out how to ask. He never was good at words. 

He must be sitting there in silence, staring at Mastermind, he realizes. He wonders if Mastermind can hear his thoughts. 

He draws a breath, slow and ragged. “Why did you do it?” he asks. “Just - tell me that. You fucking owe me that much.”

The other nods his head and looks down at his feet before looking up at Elliot. If he accepts the truth, Mastermind is staring right at the answer to that question. He did this for Elliot, and Elliot doesn’t appreciate it nearly enough. It stings what little purpose Mastermind feels he has left in him. After going away, he felt hollow and estranged from a greater reason for being. If his only reason he had doesn’t matter to the one person he did it all for, then - well - it stings to say the least. Truthfully it’s all he had held on to those last two months, he had nothing else.

It’s not as if Mastermind doesn’t acknowledge Elliot’s concerns though. He knows them, he is them. He had doubted and questioned his motivations and their outcomes all along, every step. If there was another way, he would have taken it, but life is messy. Control is all an illusion, nothing exists in the clean ways we want, if at all.

At least he hopes this is his nature, to resort to better things, and that it hasn’t become a void. After so much he’s been through, now he just feels empty like nothing is there. It's been like that for quite some time, and he can’t quite grasp who he is anymore.

“Is that all you think I’m good for?” He shrugs and looks on in disappointment. “To fucking owe you shit? I’ve done my part.” 

Anger sparks in Elliot’s chest. “You’ve done your part?” he says, incredulously. “You think - you think this is what I wanted? You stole my life from me! You trapped me in a dream world for a year while my mother died and my best friend was shot by some kind of Chinese hacker cult!” 

There are tears welling up in his eyes and he  _ hates  _ that, has always hated that he cries when he’s angry. “And that wasn’t enough for you, was it? Because you came into  _ my  _ world and you destroyed it, you tried to steal my place there too. Because - because you couldn’t - ” His voice is breaking now, tears running down his face.

“You couldn’t even let me have that, you couldn’t even let me be happy there. You made up this lie about how Angela was still alive, my mother was still, my dad - but then you tore that all away from me because you can’t let me have  _ anything!”  _ His voice is getting louder. He wonders what he must look like, sitting alone on a ferris wheel shouting at nothing. What does it matter, right? His life’s a mess now anyway. 

Mastermind simply takes all of it in, Elliot’s tears which remind him of his own. He never cried when he was angry, he cried when he felt so alone. He thinks perhaps Elliot feels that way too. The idea ties him in a knot on the inside, because Elliot shouldn’t be so lonely anymore. He deserves to feel free from that pain. 

It’s painful to witness Elliot reject the truth, reject this reality. Denial isn’t freedom. He was there once too, denying it, getting trapped in it. Mr.Robot’s words from when they first met run through Mastermind’s head. _ I thought he was free, doing what he did, but he wasn't. He was in prison. Just like you are now, Elliot. But I'm gonna break you out.  _ Was Mastermind to do the same, yet again, was he to find the way out of the cage? For both of them? He thought he'd already set Elliot free, but maybe he’d only let him out. There’s a difference, he knows.

“Look around you.” He chuckles, seeing how the roles seem to have reversed themselves with Mastermind himself giving the lectures this time. “You think you have nothing, but the truth sets you free, Elliot. You don’t have everything you want, but I’ve given you what you wanted.” 

Elliot’s shoulders tense up around his shoulders, his body practically vibrating with rage. “This isn’t what I wanted,” he snaps. “I wanted - I wanted - ”  _ I wanted to be safe.  _ He draws in a breath and pulls his hood up. He’s wearing one of Mastermind’s hoodies. He misses his sweaters, the ones he used to wear to Allsafe. He can remember them so clearly, the color, the fabric, the texture against his skin, but like the rest of his life there, they weren’t real. He wonders:  _ Did I dream them up, those sweaters, or did he? Did he give them to me?  _

“I can’t - I can’t do this,” he says, his voice shaking. “You made me into some kind of revolutionary, and now you’re gonna leave me all alone to pick up the pieces? I don’t even know what I  _ did  _ the past year. Darlene tried to explain it to me, but there’s so many gaps.”

_ Alone.  _ The word penetrates Mastermind’s void, the hollow bits of himself. He feels it, the panic setting in over that wave of anger. They’re not his emotions, but they might as well be. 

“Fuck.” He chokes, unable to hold it back. Mistakes, his mistakes.  _ Are they all that’s left of me now? _ He leans himself back and rubs his eyes fighting hard to find the things to say to make this right, make this sensation leave. “Didn’t I just say you still had something? You’re not alone. If you looked around you would see that.” He moves his hands away and now it’s his turn for tears to swell in his eyes because it’s words he also needed to hear said.

Mastermind is crying and that strikes an uncomfortable note in Elliot’s chest. He looks away. Mastermind isn’t supposed to cry. Elliot never imagined him that way. “A guy came to my door the other day . . . tall guy, wearing camo, talks a lot. He said we were friends, like he was worried about me. But I never met that guy before. He was looking for you, not me. And me? I’ve got . . . I had Angela. But she’s gone.” His voice is trembling again. “A-and I had my parents, but they’re - gone too.” He’s breaking down and he hates it. “I - I wasn’t made for this. You were supposed to handle this. And now I’m alone even in my head, because you won’t  _ talk  _ to me. I - I need - I can’t - I - I don’t know what to do.”

Mastermind gulps, restraining himself from losing composure. He wipes away his tears with his sleeve. “I’m sorry,” he says, soft and almost a whisper.

He doesn’t know what else to say anymore, what do people do when they’re trying to comfort something like this? He was so used to handling it all himself. All the loneliness, the grief, fear, and pain. Maybe it was selfish to withhold all of it from Elliot, to hide away. He can see a reflection of how he feels, a reflection of himself, breaking down before him, and it paralyzes him. Not sure what to do but empathize on a deep level with it; to feel a ping of shame that when Elliot was trying to reach out no one answered. Hadn’t he wanted that once?  _ Fuck.  _ The tears pick back up again. 

Elliot curls in on himself, cringing away from Mastermind. Mastermind’s pain is raw and visible and obvious and Elliot can’t stand it. He doesn’t  _ want  _ to feel bad for the Mastermind. “You stole my life,” he says, his voice coming out small. He hates feeling weak. Isn’t that why he made Mastermind? A version of him who could be strong, cold, angry, who could keep him safe? And instead here he is, crying again, but in front of Mastermind this time, Mastermind who’s betrayed him and had taken over like a metastasizing cancer and  _ now Mastermind is crying too. _ “You tried to strangle me.  _ You  _ did all that to me.” 

“I thought I had a chance to really be with her again,” Mastermind says talking to his feet. “I...I thought we couldn’t both exist. I didn’t see it all wasn’t real, it was an illusion.” He sighs composing himself enough to look back up. “We’re both here now, but Angela won’t be, everyone who’s gone is gone. I regret that, but it’s what’s real.” He leans in and shakes his head. “You can’t hide from it.” 

Elliot wants to. He wants to disappear into the inner world again, where it’s safe, where he doesn’t have to hurt or be alone. “I wasn’t even - ” His voice fails him, and he has to stop, fighting back a sob. “I wasn’t even there for her. Everything - everything that happened to her - it’s like I slept through the last year of her life. I was - I was daydreaming about proposing to her while she was  _ dying _ out here in the real world.” He wipes his eyes with the sleeves of his hoodie, angrily. “Why did you do this to me?”

Mastermind feels confused, shouldn’t he know? “Did you ever dream of saving the world? How much better it would be if a few awful people didn’t have so much control? I did it because-” he stops and hesitates on if he should say it or fudge the answer around.  _ I loved you so much. _ That’s what he’s been told and he knows it’s true. “You.” 

He did this to make the world safer for him and can see how Elliot doesn’t feel it is. He wants his prison more, where those things only felt true but weren’t. Elliot can’t go back, he won’t let him. He has to face things now as they are, both of them do. 

Elliot draws in a shaky breath, still not meeting Mastermind’s eyes. “If you did this all for me, then why did you leave me alone?” The question is out of his mouth before he can think about it, and he hates how pathetic it sounds. But at the same time, he means it. Mastermind wasn’t there for him when he woke up, and has refused to speak to him this whole time. 

“The others thought it was best if we step back and let you live your life.” He grimaces. It’s that simple, step away from control so that Elliot could have what he deserves. Truth and freedom in the real world, with real people and consequences, with real wishes and fulfillments, real body and action, and life. If only he could see this was also for his benefit, both saving the world and bringing him back to it. But it wouldn’t be that simple it seems. Mastermind hates it.

“Let me live my life?” Elliot says, incredulously. “You - you can’t just lock me up for a year and then - set me loose, leave me hanging, without - ” A sob wells up in his throat, and he clamps his mouth shut to keep it from escaping. “I’m - I’m not supposed to be the only one. I’m not supposed to be the one in charge.”

Mastermind can still feel all the anger welled up inside there in the one opposite him. He’s tried to not let it fuel his own. There are a good many things he could come back and fight him back on but he holds back. He hates that he has to hold back. He closes his eyes. This is another way of doing things, a better answer to the original plan. It wouldn’t hurt to try if there’s a chance it could work. 

“Okay,” he replies. 

“Okay?” Elliot repeats, stupidly. For a moment he doesn’t understand what Mastermind is saying. He takes a deep breath. “You’ll come back?” he asks. 

Of course, there was never going to be a going away forever. Everyone was always still around and a part of Elliot. Up till now though he felt it was done for him, there was no going back here because he already did what was needed. Mastermind nods, his eyes still shut but his brows pinch in. More tears trail down his face and he doesn’t know why. Yet he’s almost afraid of this; coming back. Could he control himself? 

Elliot swallows. He can feel Mastermind’s anxiety, creeping through the space between them and settling in his own chest. “I don’t - I don’t want to wake up a year from now,” he says, and it’s both a warning and a confession of his own weakness. He’s not looking at Mastermind, his eyes fixed on the floor of the carriage. “I’ve already lost so much.” Because the truth is, he’s still terrified of Mastermind. What’s going to happen if he lets him back in? But at the same time, what’s going to happen if he doesn’t?

He can’t live on his own. He can’t do it. He’s a fragment of himself and he  _ needs  _ the rest of him. He learned that a long time ago, the first time he tried to get rid of Mr. Robot. 

“I know. I have, too.” Mastermind looks back out as they make their final descent down. He feels like Mr. Robot, saying all these reassuring things. It’s uncomfortable, or perhaps simply his anxieties, or both. He’s tired of fighting, he knows by now there’s no use to it, but he feels like he’s stepping on glass trying not to. 

He tenses himself. “It’s up to you now; to stay. You have to be strong.” 

Elliot looks up at the sky. “I’m only part of us too,” he says. “I can’t do this alone.”

“You don’t have to,” Mastermind assures. “Do you trust me?” 

Elliot’s shoulders tense, and he glances back at Mastermind for a second, and then away again. “I don’t know,” he says. And then, after a moment, “I don’t really know you. Not yet.”

“You have to trust the people who show up for you.” He continues to stare out at the beach, reflecting on sand, on change. How it happens at every second, how it's been happening right now. “They matter.” 

Elliot thinks about Darlene, about the unanswered voicemails on his cell phone where she’s called him again and again and he doesn’t pick up. “Trust is dangerous. The people who betray you are never the ones you didn’t trust.”

Mastermind thinks of everyone who has come and gone this last year. He thinks of how Angela betrayed him, even Darlene, even Mr. Robot. He had every reason to push everyone out and deny them access, but that doesn’t work. They betrayed him but they were there, only trying to help. He trusts they had only good intentions, that they cared for him. If everyone were here he’d trust them now; the ones who kept showing up. He understands now that he wouldn’t be here without them, and neither would Elliot.

“You’re wrong.” He sniffs and adjusts himself on the seat, and then he begins to quote from memory in slow and steady rhythm. “‘So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens.’”

Elliot looks at him, again, sidelong but not breaking his gaze this time. “What does that mean?” he asks. 

He shrugs. “I don’t know, someone said it once, and when I remembered they did, I kept thinking about what it meant.” He pauses a moment to gather his thoughts. “I think it means when things are bad your friends can be there for you. To heal you. It heals me a bit to know that.” 

Elliot thinks,  _ it should have been me.  _ It should have been Elliot that person was talking to, not Mastermind. It should have been his life he was living. He looks away again. “I didn’t know you could be like this,” he says, eventually. “When you locked me away, when you strangled me . . . you were always so . . . in control.” 

Mastermind has been forcing back the memory of his hands wrapped and strangling the mirror image of himself this whole time. It had worked so far - but this is the moment that breaks him. When he least expected it. He’s back there now, almost feeling it, and shaking his head trying to push it away. His shoulders are tense at the thought of Elliot remembering that moment of weakness. He feels suffocated again, by the past, by the uncontrollable, but he won’t be weak again, won’t hurt Elliot again.

“Well, you said it yourself, you don’t really know me yet,” Mastermind says. “But I’m a part of you and you’re a part of me. We’re not so different.” 

_ If that’s true,  _ Elliot wants to ask,  _ why did you have to lock me away?  _ But he knows the reason. He knows he could never have done what Mastermind did. He’s not the hero type. “I think we’re very different,” he says, and he can’t tell whether that makes him feel relief or regret. 

Mastermind doesn’t want to say anything else, so he stays quiet. He slides up into the corner, near the door, watching below as they descend from the heavens. The desire to leave still tugs at him, though he knows it would be wrong. It all feels so wrong, not being Elliot still gets him all turned around. This whole encounter feels like some type of trip that sended them both up and down in a spiral of emotion, and he’s glad the ride is nearly over. Seeing Elliot out here verified the truth for him, but also reminding him how unwhole he now feels.  _ Who am I really, who is he? _ He doesn’t really know. 

“What now?” Elliot asks, very quietly. “Everything’s different now. I don’t know where to start.”

“With those you can trust,” Mastermind replies, matching the volume. “You’ll know who.” 

Elliot swallows. The carriage settles down on the ground, the wheel coming to a stop, and Elliot sits there for a moment, not ready to get out. “Will you be there with me? All of you?”

“If you trust us.” Mastermind doesn’t hesitate to stand the second they halt. He can’t really make any concrete promises without speaking to everyone, and he isn’t even sure if it works like that, but he takes his best guess. “Yeah.” 

Mastermind realizes this is a contract, building a connection between two parts; Elliot and himself, Elliot and his system. They will acknowledge each other, see each other, talk to each other. Get to know who each other really are. To acknowledge this, Mastermind holds his hand out to initiate their handshake. 

Elliot eyes Mastermind’s hand warily, and for a moment Mastermind thinks he’s going to refuse. And then Elliot looks up at Mastermind, and his eyes are soft, and before Mastermind knows what’s happening, Elliot has closed the distance between them, ignoring the hand, and pulled him into a hug. 

He blinks, almost pulling away out of instinct before the realization settles in him.  _ Yeah, this works too.  _ He slowly raises his arms back to return the embrace, closing his eyes as he buries his face in Elliot's shoulder. This definitely looks weird, they’re holding up the line to get off, but Mastermind doesn’t care anymore. Let people stare. Let people think he’s weird. Connection feels nice, it feels like something, a small part of him feels filled again. It feels like he isn’t alone anymore. 

“I’ll always be a part of you, Elliot,” Mastermind says, softly.

Elliot pulls away, and gives Mastermind a little smile. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is our first collaboration. I (Hexiva) wrote host!Elliot, and my cowriter took Mastermind. If you liked it, please leave us a comment!


End file.
